


Entr'Acte: The Acid Test

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [178]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Acid Attack, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Caring, Christmas, Depression, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Gay Sex, Islands, Johnlock - Freeform, London, M/M, Minor Character Death, Recovery, Scars, Self-Doubt, Storms, Trains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 04:33:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17440037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: ֍ Sherlock is badly hurt - but he underestimates someone's love for him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Centaurlips](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Centaurlips/gifts).



_[Narration by Mr. Lucius Holmes, Esquire]_

When your nickname is that of the devil himself, you have a reputation to live up (or down) to. I am incredibly fortunate to have Sandy to come home to, a wonderful fellow who can cope with my many moods. Especially working for someone as unscrupulous, villainous and flint-hearted as the British Government, which means that you quickly learn that thinking the worst about people may be bloody cynical, but it means that the only thing you have to suffer is other people's annoyance at your always being proved right.

It was my sister Anna who alerted me to Sherlock's interest in the _'Veiled Lodger'_ play, and told me that she had some suspicions that our elder brother, Ranulph, was involved in the attacks against it as one of her friends had heard him boasting of his 'achievements'. Rafe has always been a bully and a coward, and that he would try to intimidate a bunch of actors had come as no surprise. And when his efforts were frustrated by Sherlock, I had some inkling that there might be trouble. 

Foolishly I just did not appreciate how much trouble.

On the fateful day, I received news of the disaster by sheer good fortune. I had paid a call on Sherlock at his Baker Street home only to be told that he had gone to the Turkish Baths down the road. Friday was not his usual day for so doing, but his landlady Mrs. Harvelle (a lady who owned a rifle and thus commanded both fear and respect) explained that he had been out the day before on a case somewhere, and had missed his usual day. I was still talking to her when the telegram arrived. She read it and her face darkened.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Someone has attacked your brother at the Baths”, she said, looking horrified. “One of those acid attacks. It is terrible!”

“He will want John”, I said at once (I had far too much respect for the landlady to know that she would be unaware of my brother's true relationship with the doctor, let alone that if she had disapproved of it they would surely have been made aware). “Where is he?”

“He said that he had a patient out Enfield way”, she said. “But I do not know who.”

“He has a colleague who lives not far from King's Cross Station”, I said. “Sir Peter Greenwood. I shall call on him; it would be quicker than going via the surgery.”

֍

I wired ahead to King's Cross for a special before proceeding to Sir Peter's house; the baronet was out but fortunately his good lady wife knew who the patient had to be. One of the original sponsors of the surgery where John still worked from time to time had recently moved there, otherwise he would never have taken somewhere so far away from the city. I was directed to Lady Brandleton at the oddly-named Trumpet House; in my haste I quite forgot myself and kissed a startled Lady Greenwood before fleeing the house. 

My special was ready when I arrived at the station – I later had to go back and tip the staff involved, I was so distrait - and a swift journey to the station† in the Middlesex town ensued where I managed to obtain directions for the house. Typically I was just setting off in one cab when I caught sight of John drawing up to the station in a second. The cab-driver was evidently annoyed at my sudden change of mind but I did not care, pursuing my quarry through the station and onto the platform. He looked most startled when I ran round in front of him.

“Sherlock needs you”, he said. “Come!”

I hustled him along the island platform to where my special was waiting. I could see the moment when he put two and two together and realized that my advent did not portend good news.

“I knew that a special would be quicker than sending a telegram as you were so close to London”, I explained. 

“What has happened?” he asked anxiously.

I took a deep breath. 

“Sherlock has been attacked”, I said. “I am afraid that our bully of a brother, Ranulph, did not take kindly to his defeat over that damn play.”

I could see how much the news hit him.

“How bad?” he managed.

“Ranulph must have employed someone to throw acid at him in that Turkish bath that we use, near Baker Street”, I said grimly. “I do not know how bad it is; the doctor treating him sent only cursory details to the house.”

“I have to be with him!” he said urgently. He nodded.

“I know”, he said. “But be prepared. For all his apparent lack of care about his appearance, he will not take this well.”

֍

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> † Enfield (Great Northern) was a terminus at the time this story is set. It was subsequently replaced by a through station (still open today) on an adjoining site which became known as Enfield Chase.


	2. Chapter 2

_[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]_

The first sign that something was wrong was all the shouting.

I had never been much of an oil-painting – none of us Holmeses were if truth be told – but when I had seen my scarred face and body after the attack, my heart had sunk. John would never want me like this, he was handsome and beautiful and he would find someone else, he....

He was the one shouting. He burst into the room and was immediately confronted by Doctor Parry who started to ask him to leave. John stepped right up to the fellow taking full advantage of his height advantage and actually snarled in his face. Then he pushed past him and stared at me. I waited for the inevitable.

“Really?” he snapped. “You think so little of me that I would be put off by _this?_ I have seen you first thing in the morning!”

I turned fully towards him so that he could see the full extent of the damage my vile brother's attacker had done to me; I was scarred from my neck all the way down to my feet. It was one of those ironies that the advice of the man I loved had spared my face; he had urged me to try one of those mud-packs that I had been dubious about and my wearing it had at least spared one part of my otherwise ruined body.

“Look at me, John”, I said sadly.

“You bloody idiot!” he scoffed. “I love the heart inside the man, not the package it comes in. And if anyone feels the urge to say anything about the way you look, they had better be prepared to get hit bloody hard, man or woman! Look, the only reason I am not.... cuddling you right now is because it would hurt you.”

I managed a watery smile.

“You hate that word”, I said.

“For you, I would do anything”, he said firmly. “Climb the highest mountain, swim the widest sea, and even.... cuddle. Because I love you.”

I could not help myself. I wept and he watched helplessly, clearly close to tears himself and unable to touch me as I do desperately wanted him to.

֍

John being John immediately set himself the task of finding somewhere for me to go so I could heal. I tried to tell him that Doctor Parry had said parts of me might never fully recover but he would have none of it, and his repeated declarations of love for me regardless of my appearance finally started to get through my defences. Perhaps he might still love me despite my scars.

“I have sorted somewhere for us to go for a few months”, he said the following day. “Your brother Lucius will deal with any requests for help and you can recover away from it all.”

“Is there such a place still in England?” I wondered.

“We have been there already”, he said. “Futility Island.”

I looked at him in surprise. Mr. Falconbridge had decided to leave his island as of last year and move to live near his sister after he had suffered a fall and been unable to summon assistance for some days. I believed that he had gifted the island to the council now that he could no longer live on it.

It was John who read my thoughts for once.

“He very generously asked that the light-house rooms be maintained for us should we wish to go there any time”, he said. “Your brother has arranged a special that will take to Clacton and Tom the fisherman had said that if we wire him beforehand he will sail there to pick you up, so you do not have to face that long road journey down to Mersea.”

My eyes prickled at all this consideration for me. I decided it might be time to broach a difficult subject that I knew had to be faced sooner or later.

“Ranulph?” I asked. John scowled fiercely.

“Your father has publicly disowned him”, he said. “He even took out advertisements in the _'Times'_ would you believe? He offered him a small sum provided he changed his name and left for the country somewhere.”

“And Mother?” I asked warily.

“She was on her way to a funeral of a friend of hers in France”, John said. “I rather think that was one reason why he struck when he did; he thought to avoid her wrath.”

“She will not be happy when she does find out”, I said.

John looked guiltily at the floor. 

“What is it?” I asked.

“I may have sort of sent her a telegram?” he admitted. 

I sighed. He really was terrible. And he was by some miracle still mine!

֍


	3. Chapter 3

We made it to Futility Island where I nearly broke down yet again when I found that John had somehow managed to prepare the whole place for me (he later told me that this was Luke's doing but I was sure the inspiration came from him). All my things were there, even the violin that he could surely not like me playing, and enough barley-sugar to last for a year as well as copious supplies of coffee and bacon. I vowed there and then to do everything I had left in my power to deserve this wonderful man.

Luke came over after a week with some more good news. Ranulph had fled to the country before Mother's return home but Luke had slipped Mother his address and she had gone down to pay him a visit. Fortunately my Father had said that he would pay for the hospital treatment of the four constables it had taken to restrain her, and that the personage known as Ranulph Angelis whom he did not recognize could pay for his own bloody treatment. And best of all I was healing much better than I had expected; John now thought that all my scars would disappear eventually save for a strange one on my shoulder that looked rather like a hand-print, an odd echo of the time that he had saved me before by dragging me out of that Kentish mine. My big brother had obviously been spending too much time with Sandy because he quipped that it represented the grip that my love had on my heart, although he looked mortified as soon as the words were out of his mouth (I made a mental note to tell his lover about that next time we met; it was obligatory to embarrass one's siblings at every opportunity).

Luke also brought me news concerning a Mr. Samuel Gunner, a small-time criminal who Raphael had employed to do the actual deed. News had 'somehow' gotten round to my associates in the criminal world and they had been less than pleased at his actions, and the fellow's remains had been found in Whitechapel the day after the attack. Also in Stepney, Shadwell, Poplar, Millwall and Bow (although they were not sure about that last one as it was such a small part of the male anatomy).

֍

They do say that good can sometimes be brought out of bad, and it was three months into our stay on the island when something major happened in our relationship. We were still only holding each other gently and giving or receiving the occasional hand-job when John suddenly came out with something as we stood outside on the railing around the great light atop the light-house.

“I want to have sex.”

I smiled. Subtle as ever, my beloved man. But his next words took my breath away.

“And I want to fuck you.”

We had known each other in the Biblical sense for some two years now, and every time I had taken the lead. I had wondered on more than one occasion if he might like to for a change but he always seemed do happy with the way things were that I had been almost afraid to bring it up. And now here he was coming out with it at a time like this.

“Not because I think you need reassurance that the remaining five scars on your body might still put me off in some way”, he said (I was beginning to wonder if all this sea air was enabling him to develop his own mind-reading tendencies). “Because I want to fuck you out here. Tonight.”

I looked at him in surprise.

“You said there is a storm due tonight”, I pointed out.

“Yes”, he said. “I want to fuck you with your hands gripping the rails out here in a thunderstorm while I pound into you and we both scream to our heart's content.”

There was only one thing I could say to such an idea.

“Hell yes!”

֍

Even though the light no longer worked, there was something raw and elemental in being outside, stark naked and grasping the metal railings that ran round the outside of the actual light. John had very gently inserted the plug into me while we were inside and now he removed it and positioned himself at my entrance. Ye Gods, for one of the supposedly most intelligent men in England why had I never done this before? I was such a moron!

“Please?” I begged. 

“My beloved Sherlock”, he yelled as the thunder rumbled in the distance. There was a flash of lightning to the north and he finally pushed home. I moaned in sheer delirium.

“Are you all right?” he called anxiously.

“I will be when you move!” I yelled back. “Do it, John!”

He grabbed me with far more care than was needed and began to thrust, then reached round and began to jerk me off. I screamed my happiness to the heavens and another rumble of thunder answered. The lightning flashed at almost the same time – the storm had to be overhead now, and then I was coming harder than I had ever done in my life before. I was surely in Heaven.

And then John came inside me.

֍

It was worth the humiliation of my having passed out our first time like that, at least as we were most definitely going to repeat the experience if I had anything to say about it. Fortunately my on-site doctor insisted on a repeat prescription of such sessions on at least a daily basis for the considerable time. And they do sat that the doctor always knows best.

We spent most of the rest of that year on the island but decided to leave in early December so that we could celebrate Christmas in Baker Street. Luke came over one last time two weeks before our departure, rather unluckily just after we had been outside my having John's 'treatment' yet again. I had not known that my brother could turn that shade of red, not helped when Tom the fisherman guffawed all the way back to his boat. I was beginning to feel happy again.

Unfortunately, things were not going to be that easy.

֍


End file.
